Israel Temple Discovery Shows War Horrors, Ancient Border

A wall just outside the modern Israeli town of Beit Shemesh. Tel Aviv University archaeologists last year discovered this wall, of what they believe to be an ancient temple at Tel Beth-Shemesh. Photographer: Zvi Lederman/Beth Shemesh Excavations via Bloomberg

Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- We are standing in the middle of
Israel on a quiet hill overlooking a fertile green valley.

Some 3,000 years ago, this peaceful place was right at the
center of conflict, says archaeologist Shlomo Bunimovitz.

“The border lies somewhere between here and there,” he
says, pointing to the west. He is co-leading excavations which
have found the remains of a temple which was later desecrated
and used as animal pens.

This is Tel Beth-Shemesh, the ancient meeting point of the
Canaanites, Philistines and Israelites. The Bible describes it
as the northern border of the Tribe of Judah. The area also
features in the story of the return of the Ark of the Covenant,
earlier captured by the Philistines. King Solomon ruled the
district and it was the site of the battle between Joash and
Amaziah, the respective kings of Israel and Judah.

“We are looking for evidence that this was a border,
tangible evidence in the material culture that reflects this,”
says Bunimovitz, from Tel Aviv University.

The excavation, just outside the modern Israeli town now
called Beit Shemesh, is investigating the extent of Philistine
dominance some 3,000 years ago and the impact its culture had on
the indigenous Canaanites.

Tel Aviv University started excavating in the early 1990s.
Bunimovitz says that Beth-Shemesh may have been the first line
of resistance against the Philistines, the seafaring people who
began to settle there.

Philistine Pottery

He produces plastic-covered charts that show how as
excavations moved eastward, there were less remains of
decorative Philistine pottery and a complete disappearance of
pig bones.

“The Philistines wanted this fertile valley,” Bunimovitz
says, “but had this pain in the neck here at Beth Shemesh.”

Before the Philistines settled, the Canaanites did eat a
little pork, he says. Then they seemed to want to set themselves
apart from newcomers and maintain a distinct culture.

“There is a modern example of this, in the wearing of
keffiyehs (headscarf),” he says. “Israelis always wore them
until Yasser Arafat adopted it. Now you won’t see any Israelis
with it. Suddenly the keffiyeh becomes an ethnic marker.”

His team has uncovered the outer wall of what they say is
an ancient temple, with a row of three flat stones. One was
surrounded by chalices and goblets, another surrounded by bones
-- evidence of offerings to the gods or sacrificial slaughter.

Black Lines

Most interesting to Bunimovitz is the black lines that run
through the hill along the temple that has yet to be uncovered.

“Normally I would say these are destruction layers, there
was a temple, it was destroyed, and that’s it,” Bunovitz says.
“But we ran chemical checks on this and found out that what
caused the lines was animal dung. Someone came and used the
place after the temple was destroyed for animal pens. We surmise
it must have been their enemies. If you want to overcome
resistance you desecrate a temple.”

There is a possibility that the Canaanites living in Beth
Shemesh may have further evolved into being part of the
Israelite people, he says. “We see a process of becoming
something not eating pig that will later become an identity
marker of the Israeli monarchy. This may or may not be an
evolution into being Israelites or part of the Israelites.”

Beth Shemesh later became part of the Israelite monarchy,
although the Bible never calls the people there Israelites, only
the people of Beth Shemesh, he says.

Pig Bones

Neil Silberman, a historian at the University of
Massachusetts at Amherst, cautions against reading too much into
archaeological findings. The absence of pig bones may be an
environmental issue, such as the climate no longer being
conducive to the raising of the animals.

“What is interesting about Beth Shemesh is the concept of
it not only being a border town between the Philistines and the
kingdom of Judah, but also of the inevitable tension between the
two,” he says by telephone. “Archaeology is sort of like
Sherlock Holmes at a crime site: Unfortunately in archaeology
there isn’t an end to the process.”

Silberman co-wrote “The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New
Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Sacred Texts.”